PGP/23/412

Rhea Pradhan
Marketing of Services – B

Porcini Pronto: “Great Italian cuisine without the wait!”

1. How has Porcini’s maintained high product and service quality, and how does it plan to do so
for its new Pronto concept?

Porcini maintained the same product and service quality consistently in all i’s outlets. It always
provided top-quality food products and an excellent experience. They did this through efficient
hiring and training of all their employees, including experienced restaurant managers, supervisory
personnnel, chefs, etc… The Chef they hired made her innovative recipes and those shared her
method and trained other chefs along the restaurant chain. They also provided a family owned
Italian restaurant theme, so there was reasonable difference but appreciable consistency in their
stores in terms of ambience and food respectively.

Plan for Pronto:

There are various measures planned to maintain the quality and performance standards that
Porcini’s built a wonderful reputation around. These include:

 New recipes with lesser prep time and easier service

 Hiring the right people who will be responsible and customer oriented themselves and bring
the right skills and values they need inherently. For the same purpose, a more effective
compensation plan will be designed to reward them.
 Use of wireless tech was planned to increase wait staff productivity
 Using screens and technology, Italian cuisines and backgrounds would be displayed,
accompanied by a customer feedback system to gauge their response.

2. What does the proposed customer questionnaire system tell you about Porcini’s approach to
quality? What are the system’s strengths and weaknesses? Can you suggest ways to
supplement this tool?

Porcini’s focused on customer experience. They prided on being the top quality and service provided
and was appreciated by the customers for the same. Thus, their questionnaire gauged the
satisfaction levels of their customers. They collected customer comments and feedback on quality,
service, ambience, speed, delivery etc…. to get a wholesome idea of things they considered primary
to quality.

System Strengths and Weaknesses:

The questionnaire contained everything essential needed to measure quality, covering all aspects
which Porcini considered to set them apart. It was a short survey. They measured quality of service
and product, ambience, waitstaff and server behavior, value for money, appearance, cleanliness etc..
Thus we see that the focus here is on customer experience touchpoints and talks more about how
the customer reacted to various provisions by the restaurant.

The survey however, did not measure the consumer behavior and response elicited by them It could
have asked for the emotions of the consumer after availing their service, what they enjoyed in the
restaurant, future visits and what would pull them to the restaurant next etc..
PGP/23/412
Rhea Pradhan
Marketing of Services – B

There items would have helped them get consumer behavior data as well as build the consumer for
a future visit.

3. How well or poorly do the various elements of the Pronto concept –its menu choices, HR
system, quality measures, etc. -support the goal of “great Italian cuisine without the wait”?

Pronto is based on the idea of taking the famed quality and standards of Porcini into a speeded up
initiative to cater to travellers through a table service food joint. Their concept is built from the
Porcini concepts and values. They have curated a collection of food items and dishes which provide
an Italian cuisine whilst taking lesser time to prepare. They also plan to carefully select their staff and
employees, focusing on values and skills essential to build a team oriented approach and provide
customer satisfaction. Further, it will still be a table service outlet, but with a lesser time taken to
finish lunch and dinner in less than an hour. Thus, it will provide great experiences to the customers
and does indeed fall inline with the plan to provide “great Italian cuisine without the wait”.

4. If you were a member of Porcini’s top management, which of the available growth options
for pronto would you choose? Why? What are the implications of your choices for
profitability, Return on investment (ROI) product and service quality, and the quality image
of the Porcini’s brand?

Considering Pronto, the company owned model would be the most suitable.

Let us consider the following analysis.

Particulars Company Owned Syndicated Franchised

Quality Control High High Low
Initial Investment 2.1 million 2.5 Million 1.0 Million
Share of Revenue Full revenue Part of revenue to be 5-6% royalty on
shared – 4% revenues achieved
only
Operations Full control Full Control Marginal control
Pilot Testing Possible Not possible Not possible

Thus, a company owned model seems more favorable for Pronto. This way, the company will be able
to control complete operations, and ensure that the standards they pride themselves upon are met
to the utmost care. Plus, quality is their major advantage, and thus it is one of the things to be
closely guarded to differentiate Porcini amongst other Italian providers. They can also determine the
location of the outlet and in the worst cases scenario, the outlet can be sold to get back money.

5. Does pronto have any sustainable competitive advantages? Why or why not?

Pronto’s major competitive advantage is the excellent cuisine it serves and the recipies it produces.
Coming from an award winning chef Mariana Molise, she acts as a optimum resource and will
provide this advantage till she is present, as it cannot be copied from here, she is rare(being the only
one of herself). However, maintaining her within the company poses the one major risk to their
major competitive advantage, as there may be a situation where she leaves the company and joins a
competitor. Another advantage is their brand image, which currently is their most important and
thus more vulnerable competitive advantage, yet it is sustainable. It cannot be imitated by another
party, they have awards to back up their quality claims. It is valuable and rare and not everyone can
portray a family Italian cuisine perception, as has been seen in the examples provided of Olive
PGP/23/412
Rhea Pradhan
Marketing of Services – B

Garden and Sbarro. Lastly, it is non-substitutable and this it their brand reputation acts as a massive
competitive advantage which will be sustainable so far as they protect it from any possible
problems.

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